Zero at the Bone (20 page)

Authors: Michael Cadnum

BOOK: Zero at the Bone

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She fell onto the sofa with an apologetic laugh. Dad gave us his no-news expression, lips together, eyes focused on nothing. He hung up the phone. He said he would try to get the heater going, but I could tell that he needed to do something, anything, all of us struck by the hope we had never expressed, crazy, stupid, completely illogical. A hope that was suddenly gone.

There was no sign of a visit from Anita anywhere, not even in the bathroom with the glass shelves of the medicine cabinet that were always cold, even in the middle of summer, retaining a trace of the winter freeze. Things were like that in the mountains. Opening a closet, rummaging for slippers, when I found one it was like iron, cold footwear that had not been warm for months, another one of her shoes.

Anita's old traces were everywhere, including books she had long since outgrown, biographies of great female athletes, women of science. There was an empty forty-five pistol shell beside the blue scrub jay feather. I remembered when Anita found the copper shell, picking it up, carrying it back to the cabin, a thing that did not belong.

“I didn't realize she had so many clothes here,” said my father, the heater huffing on at last. “That's why I had to turn right around and come out here. I look and see a line of hiking boots and running shoes, all of them hers.” Shoes she had outgrown, I nearly said. The counselor we had been seeing had encouraged us to share our feelings.

Dad turned a knob on the heater and shut the door. He locked it, to keep the raccoons out. He found his way out over the roots of a sugar pine, taking deep breaths. He put his hand out to steady himself against a tree. “You told me it was a bad idea to come up here, that I ought to have the management company take care of the mouse holes and nail the shutters.”

“I didn't say it was a bad idea.” I had asked, “Are you sure?”

“We'll tool on up there and winterize the cabin,” was the way he had put it. If he didn't get rest soon, he would need blood, type A, bleeding inside the way he had when he was younger and the market for wicker chairs collapsed. I couldn't help reminding myself that the nearest hospital was in Tahoe City.

When he stood silent for too long, I could sense the emptiness grow in him. He put his hand out to a sprig of pine, needing to touch something.

“Did you think she might have come here?” my dad asked.

“Maybe I did. In the back of my mind,” I said.

“Maybe she did show up,” he said. He never used to sound like this. “And she was very careful not to disturb anything.”

“Dad, I think I'm going to go for a swim.” Just to distract him, give him something to think about.

“It's almost dark,” he said.

“It'll be invigorating.”

A swim in that water could kill a person, too far from shore. The water in Lake Tahoe was always just a few degrees above turning into ice, year-round. The lake never actually froze. It stayed just the way it was. But it was a tradition in our family, a quick dive in the water, an hour by the fire. It was late in the year for it, snow like dirty napkins out by the gravel drive, but the air was still warm, scented with sugar pine.

My mother was still breathing hard, leaning back on the sofa. She saw me whisk my bathing trunks out of the duffel bag and she said, “Cray, you're a maniac.” But it was after a moment's hesitation, after she was going to say something else. This happened a lot, these days. Even when the fax came, saying that she could name her new species of bay tree, she didn't tell us. I had to find out about it going through her papers, throwing away the mail she said God had not given her the strength to read.

My bare feet felt their way, down along the pine twigs and the ant holes I could still see in the near dark, as though the sun had begun to set and then rebounded, bouncing gently back for an extra few minutes of dusk.

“It's almost freezing,” my dad said, teasingly, like a little kid, someone who wanted to be liked. Sometimes I felt this about my fatherâwhat a nervous, eager little kid he must have been, dancing around when he got all his spelling words right.

He probably couldn't see me against the dark water, shuddering not so much with cold but because the sand down near the lake was granite meal, coarse, and pinecones skittered underfoot. I half stepped on one, getting a pine tooth stuck under the ball of my foot, stuck on with pine sap.

The lake crept up to my ankles, and I stood still. The mountains rose up, all the way around the lake, like outlines that had not existed one minute before. Little prickles of light distracted my eye, the casinos on the Nevada side.

My leg bones ached. I told myself I would get used to it, taking another step, up to my knees, shivering. “It's not too bad,” I called out, wondering if my dad was still watching, wanting him to be, hoping he would come down to the edge of the lake.

I shook my foot to get the pine tooth off my sole, but I could not feel it. I couldn't feel anything.

“So what do you think?” said my dad from somewhere behind me, close. “Do you think I ought to go in and get my suit on, and come down for a swim?”

I thought he might be joking, but then he said, “I have those old bathing trunks with the starfish printed on them, remember?” I could tell he was not joking, and yet he wasn't serious either. He was just talking, needing to hear whatever I would say.

“No, I don't think you better,” I said.

I could hear him thinking about my words, taking another step, looking out at me, or past me, at the water. I could feel him wanting to dive in, and swim as far and as hard as he could. I could feel him needing to hear my voice.

“I think you're right,” I said. “It's too cold.”

I knew he was looking at me, trying to see me in the dark.

About the Author

Michael Cadnum is the author of 35 books for adults and young adults. His workâwhich includes thrillers, suspense novels, historical fiction, and books about myths and legendsâhas been nominated for the National Book Award (
The Book of the Lion
), the Edgar Award (
Calling Home
and
Breaking the Fall
), and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (
In a Dark Wood
). A former National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, he is also the author of award-winning poetry.
Seize the Storm
(2012) is his most recent novel.

Michael Cadnum lives in Albany, California, with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Drew Padrutt

ISBN: 978-1-5040-1979-8

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com